Market research into the behavior of consumers, such as their response to particular advertisements, is useful for the marketing of products which are sold in retail markets. In one such type of market research, a plurality of consumers or perspective customers are selected as a panel forming a representative subgroup of a particular demography or population. The buying habits of the selected panelists are recorded and analyzed. The entire population under study is then exposed to media oriented information messages (advertisements) which it is believed will influence their buying habits. These panelists may shop in different stores of a chain or may shop in other establishments in a particular geographic area. A panel is limited in its geographic extent and limited in the establishments where the respective panelists can purchase items so that a market researcher may tabulate the purchases of respective panelists to determine which advertisements each particular panelist may have watched, what purchases he made in response thereto, and where.
In a more controlled environment, the panelists can be provided with targetable television which shows specific advertisements to households which are taking part in the study. The panelist then makes purchases from particular stores in the geographic area, and those purchase responses are recorded. The recordation of the purchase response can be automatic, such as by way of product code scanning in respective stores, or manual, such as by the panelists marking their purchases on paper. Preferably, such market research is made substantially transparent to the panelists such that the purchases are recorded automatically so as not to influence the behavior of the panelist or be influenced thereby as might be the case where the panelists have to record their own purchases. In one successful system the advertisements used for the market research are substituted for regular advertisements in an unobtrusive manner so that a panelist does not know which advertisements the market researcher is studying his response to.
One such advantageous system for collecting panelist data utilizing targetable television is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,331,973 issued to Eskin, et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,404,589, issued to W. Andrew Wright, Jr.
Another system for collecting market survey data is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,355,372, issued to Johnson, et al.
A system for coupon distribution which utilizes Universal Product Code (UPC) store scanners is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,212 issued to Mindrum, et al.
In some of these prior art systems, data collection means for market research data takes advantage of a store scanning system which includes a plurality of point-of-sale terminals, a communications network, and a central processor, sometimes referred to as a store controller. Each of the point-of-sale terminals has a cash register for entering transaction data and an optical scanner which reads the Universal Product Code (UPC) bar codes on each product. Messages from a point-of-sale terminal are transferred over the communications network to the store controller for inquiry. The store controller generally responds to such inquiry by a look up of the UPC or item code and provides the point-of-sale terminal with price, quantity or other data useful in making a transaction record on a register tape for the customer. The store controller may also record the transaction for accounting or inventory purposes.
In this regard, item movement data are also useful to a market researcher because they allow an evaluation of consumer purchase behavior, as, for example, behavior variation with price change. Item movement data comprise the recordation of the sales quantity of a particular item, at a particular price and for a particular time. The day by day recording of the quantity of a particular item, its total sales, and the correlation of these sales to price change permits another factor in the complex purchasing behavior of consumers to be evaluated. It is difficult to obtain item movement data which are market research oriented from a store controller because the item data the controller collects are inventory oriented. Those data are based on the amount of a particular item which is "on hand" such that it pertains not only to product on the shelf but also that stored in the inventory area. Sales are subtracted from this total amount and thus the difference between inventory numbers will be sales for a particular day. However, if an inventory is taken and the total reset or new product is added to inventory, the sales data for a particular day can be erased before a market researcher can acquire them. Further, such inventory data may be unavailable on a day-by-day basis and price changes may or may not be included.
The communications on the store communications networks include all the transaction data for the market researcher that are necessary to evaluate the impact of advertisements, to collect item movement data, or to conduct other market research. However, in many cases it is impossible to obtain this information because access to the store controller may not be available to the market researcher. Further, even if the market researcher has access to the store controller, it is very difficult to integrate market research collection software into the store controller system without disturbing the main purpose of the store controller, which is to control and communicate with the point-of-sale terminals. Moreover, the store controller may already have too many point-of-sale terminals or communications networks such that it is overloaded and additional data processing overhead for market research is not possible or practical.
What is needed in these situations is a passive data monitoring system which will collect market research data in a transparent manner without disturbing communications between the store processor and the point-of-sale terminals. The passive data monitor needs to operate unobtrusively to read all transaction data on the communications network and selectively process the desired market research data therefrom without disturbing the normal transactions on the communications network.
While there are a number of reasons why a passive data monitor would be advantageous for collecting market research data from the scanning networks of an automated checkout system, there are also some associated problems with accomplishing this task. Initially, there is the problem of determining where on the communications network that a passive connection can be made so as not to disturb the communications on the network, while still obtaining all the data which is transacted on the network. Another problem is that the data must be collected in real time asynchronously to the processor of the passive monitor. This is because it is unknown when a panelist transaction, or other desired transaction, will take place. This problem is made more difficult because many times the protocol and data format of the communications on the store network are different from the one most optimum for the processor of a passive monitor.
Moreover, the passive data monitor must sift through all the traffic on the store network to find the market research data that are desired. Much of the data traffic on the communications network is overhead and control protocol which is of no use to the market researcher. This overhead data must be discarded but not until after they are examined, and it is determined such cannot be used. Thereafter, the passive data monitor must quickly assemble the useful data into conveniently sized records and protect them by placing them in nonvolatile storage. This operation should take place in real time so that none of the useful data are lost. Finally, when it is convenient the passive data monitor should be able to transfer the recorded data to a central processing center without interfering with the real time monitoring of the store network.
All of the these tasks increase in difficulty when monitoring a store scanning system which has multiple scanning networks. The traffic which must be monitored and the data that must be checked increase dramatically with every network which is added. Additionally, in this situation, a passive data monitor for multiple loops has the disadvantage of being not only asynchronous to a single communications network while it is monitoring, but also to all of the multiple networks. Such monitoring of multiple communications networks must be coordinated carefully because a passive monitor cannot request a transaction to be repeated and, once a transaction is missed, the data will be lost in respect to the monitor.